Tag: politics

Minnesota Congressional District 7 Outreach & InclusionOfficers Report for February 2025

CD7 and SD15 Outreach and Inclusion Officers report for February 2025

Hope you all took last months advice to “get ready” and at least loaded up at Costco!

Here’s the SitRep (Situation Report, you’ll get used to that term):

  • We may be on the verge of a humanitarian crisis as Trump has ordered roundups and crack downs on immigrants and transgender people. So far this has been immigration enforcement theatre as the deportation rate has been about the same as under Biden, and even at this thousand a day rate it’d take 30+ years to deport just the current undocumented immigrants. None the less, crops are already wasting unpicked as farm workers are afraid to leave home.
  • Trump has illegally fired key personnel at several agencies as well as at least a dozen  watchdog Inspector Generals. The vendetta extends to the FBI where anyone involved in the January 6 investigations is being fired, that’s probably over a thousand FBI agents. Whole agencies like AID look to be wiped out and another thousand workers at EPA may be fired. 
  • Elon Musk’s operatives have breeched computer systems at Treasury, Agency for International Development (AID), and Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
  • Trump has ordered 25% tariffs on everything but energy which only gets hit 10% from our allies Canada and Mexico, while the main offender China gets a 10% slap on the wrist. Combined with the disappearance of immigrant labor these tariffs will drastically lower prices paid to our farmers while making animal agriculture unprofitable too. Need a new truck for your farm or business? Most of them are either assembled or get components from Canada and Mexico and will see double digit price increases. Trump’s pricin’ his poor “coal rollers” right outa the market!
  • Federal systems are already failing- Today the FAA NOTAM (Notices To Airmen) system was     down. On social media I’m hearing that so many federal employees are retiring OPM can’t keep up!
  • DFL chair Ken Martin elected DNC chair and will bring his winning ways to the national party!
  • In a special election Iowa dems won a state senate seat in a district where Trump won by 20+%!  

So what the heck we gonna do about this mess?

We are 21 months away from a general election so it’s time for party building and candidate recruiting. Our DFL electeds will do their best to protect us and deserve our support, especially in the 2026 elections. We can protest all we want but the Republicans have the majorities in congress and don’t give a damn. Maybe we’ll have to starve these beasts…

When even a bunch of us 70 million democratic voters moves our money it has an effect. TC Pride kicked Target right outa the park and parade, with Target’s $50K sponsorship more than replaced by donations within hours. Meanwhile, Costco’s board and 98% of their stock voted to keep DEI, you know where to shop… Which Segways into ethical investing and shopping, and here’s some resources:

Honorees
2025 Rankings

https://www.hrc.org/resources/employers

HRC recently updated for 2025, Ethisphere and Just Capital should soon be updating.

And then there’s the beastliest of beasts, Trump’s federal government! Now there are some interesting tax credits that less than 2% of us taxpayers even claim for 30% of the cost of useful stuff like energy efficient wood stoves, heat pumps, water heaters, energy storage, solar panels, wind turbines, EVs, and even the plug in hybrid cars that work out here! And I know you’re gonna be plantin’ vegies and winter hardy fruits like never before, so take a look at IRS Form F and you’ll probably find some farm tax savings there… Heck, we may not owe any federal taxes at all! But we still have to file, and should the power go out on April 15th again or whatever, handwritten long form 1040s and multiple schedules are perfectly legal, hope Trump don’t bring the grid down so we all have to file that way and the IRS’ll be backed up for years…

And finally, some Outreach and Inclusion housekeeping- The statewide committee met last month and their will be a virtual retreat online in mid February and probably another date for those that can’t make it. Local units will be asked to make an outreach and inclusion plan, sounds like there will be a form so it will be easy to fill out. We have an important SCC and Business Meeting on March 29th with at least 3 executive board seats open so we need to have all our delegates attend.

I’ll probably need to update this report more often than monthly- In not quite 2 weeks Trumps tried hostile takeovers of at least 3 countries and probably more when he finds a map and learns how to pronounce their names. Facebook is not as dem friendly as it was, so I’m posting these missives on my blog at www.sassy.democrat (that’s really a URL) too. I’m on Bluesky too @dynasluyter.bsky.app, it’s a twitter type site that isn’t infested with Trumpers and ‘bots.

As always, comments welcome.

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter

Minnesota CD7 & SD15 Outreach Officers Report for January, 2025

CD7 & SD15 Outreach & Inclusion Officers Report for January 2025

The election sucked- We did OK here, but forgetting our farming and mining base in CDs 1 and 8 lost our state house majority while nationally the big D Democrats spending a billion $$$ couldn’t even beat an insane career criminal in the popular vote, never mind the electoral college and congress too. We are now stuck with years of misgovernment, and the only question is whether the GOP will do more damage by evil intent or just plain incompetence?

So what to do? Right now your social media is overflowing with demands that you protest in the streets or at least online… Half that content is probably from bots or their supposedly more educated “brethren”, AI. And none of it is going to accomplish much, other than get your name and handles on lists you don’t want to be on. 

A bit of history is in order here- My Farmer Labor socialist grandparents were in attendance at the 1934 Teamsters Strike and numerous other actions, and grandma even managed to get thrown outa the party on accusations of being a communist ‘cause she signed a communist party candidate’s nomination petition. But they kept a low enough profile to avoid prison and became Carpenters and ILGWU officers and earned union scale and pensions through the “Red Scare” and survived to be elders of the “New Left”. Nixon like Trump swore vengence and weaponized federal prosecutors and grand juries to persecute his “Enemies List”. But his signature Vietnam war was cancelled due to lack of interest as by war end 98% of New York City draftees didn’t even show up for induction, while Stonewall kicked off another movement that wasn’t even on Nixon’s radar. Reagan’s union busting honed labor’s tactics by developing corporate campaigns and made the Teamsters a force in Minnesota politics, and his intentional ignorance of the AIDS epidemic further organized the queer communities. Brat Bush tried to capitalize on 9/11 and left us with a couple trillion national debt and fertile ground for the election of our first black president, Barack Obama.

Notice some common threads?

The first is timing- The GOP pretty much hold the levers of power through 2026 and maybe 2028 and beyond. Trump and his cast of incompetents will screw up, and when they don’t they won’t be helping us any- We can accurately predict they will create runaway inflation, a farm crisis, worker shortages, oandemic(s), and probably a war or three too. But we can’t  even replace the U.S. House and maybe the Senate until 2028 and they won’t take office until 2029. So our 1st priority for 2025 is surviving-  Stock up, lock down, and prepare for all the destruction a criminal senile insane Trump and his henchmen can do!

The 2nd common thread is decentralization- Jailing the 1934 Teamsters strike leaders, labelling the Teamsters as Communists during the Red Scare, and using RICO against the Teamsters in the 80s failed because the Teamsters are decentralized and use clever tactics like making the Secretary Treasurer the actual head of the union while the President was 2nd in command and targeted by the fascists. Same with HUAC, Nixon, Reagan, and Brat Bush- Their repressive focus was too narrow while our progressive democratic movements grew broader. After survival, our task for 2025 is to fix our own democratic farmer-labor party by decentralizing power away from the cities and reducing the self serving power of the extremists. After accomplishing that we can take back our party from the myopic power brokers and professional campaigners of metro DC and start demanding fair elections and win them.

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter Comments welcome!